Creator Owned?

Do the big 2 need to provide a solid creator owned platform for their regular talent?

Or is it better that Marvel and DC maintain a primary mind-set of “Our property, edited our way.”? allowing the second tier publishers to fight over the creator-owned projects between them.

Tricky one. If Marvel and DC were open to publishing more creator-owned stuff both with their regular, veteran talent and newbies alike, would that ‘devalue’ their on-going titles? Would existing writers and artists be more inclined to work on their own projects over Bats or Spidey? Possibly, right? If they really wanted access to true creative freedom.

With the big boys continuing to do what they do really well, is it better for everyone if the best option for a creator-owned project is to move over to Image? It’s worked pretty well for a few creators recently, Brubaker, Hitch etc.

What’s best for the creator? I can only imagine that the creator wants to be creative! Completely and totally creative with the subject matter, character set, narrative, the whole canvas, without the heavy eyes of a parental shadow hovering over their shoulder. I’ve heard horror stories of artists being handed back their pencil work with a note to “make Cap’s head 5% smaller”. Nice.

‘Creator-owned’ is a blank cheque for anyone wanting to tell a whole story from top to bottom. It’s for the world-builders of the industry, the artists and writers looking to conceive of something cool with no restrictions and no editorial commitments.

What’s best for the retailer? As many strong publishers producing as much desirable content as possible?

What’s best for the fans? As many strong publishers producing as much desirable content as possible… choice essentially, right?

I’d like to see the big 2 supporting more creator-owned books, but I also want the industry as a whole to be built around 4 or 5 big publishers all taking an even share of the market, as opposed to 2 big companies dominating everything and a bunch of smaller ones picking up the pieces.